Thanksgiving Prayer, 2025

Gracious God,

We stand before You in gratitude on this day the way our parents did and their parents before them, thanking You for giving us life and breath, food and shelter, mercy and grace.  We join the train of the faithful and the faithless alike, looking to You. Please strengthen our hearts as we remember who You have been to us this year.

We thank you for these faces around this table, both of family and friends without

whom our lives would be poorer and hearts less full. You have sovereignly knit us

together under one name or if not by name, than by one heart, to stir us to greater faith.

We thank you for the circumstances of our lives, both difficult and joyful since last we

gathered here that speak to us of Your refining mercy.

We thank you for Your forgiveness this year that allows us to stand humbly in Your

presence, yet confident of Your grace.

We thank You for Your lavish provision—for work, for opportunities, for church and

 home and Your Word that nourishes us and reminds us of who You are and whose we are.

Help us not judge the goodness of your Hand by the comforts of our life, but rather by the provision of things both intangible and untouchable that shape our characters and drive us to Your heart.

We magnify Your Name as Creator and Sustainer of life.

We glorify Your Name as the Redeemer of mankind, welcoming all who would come to You by faith.

We delight in Your Name as the Lover of our souls; You are our rest and our satisfaction.

We love You because You first loved us.

We entrust to You any worry or fear that would deaden our faith that tomorrow You will provide just as You have for us in a thousand yesterdays. We join generations upon generations who have tasted and seen that You are good.

We remember those today who live in the shadow of grief, those who are far from home, those who are hungry or alone, those who today feel only desperation because they don’t yet know Your rescue. Be near to us all; draw us to Yourself.

We anticipate the day of Your return or the day we join You in heaven and stand with those who we have once stood here beside us who are now rejoicing in Your presence. We look forward to the day, certain and sure, when Your Name is lifted high as we gather around Your throne. Let today, in this home, be a shadow of that joy. May this be our finest Thanksgiving—full of the bounty of grace.

We offer You now all the thanksgiving that blesses Your heart and fills us, too, with joy.

Psalm 79:13: So we Your people and the sheep of Your pasture will give thanks to You forever; To all generations we will tell of Your Name.